hobbish

I'm looking for a job for a character in my play and I'm having little luck. Does anyone know of a job that would require heavy manual labour, in England, that would make enough money for the person to afford a small one bedroom flat in the suburbs outsdie of a city centre? Anyone know of anything?

__________________
St. Thomas Aquinas said "he who sings prays twice". St. Thomas Aquinas never heard William Shatner sing "Rocket Man"

Banzai

Builder, perhaps?
Is it modern day England?

__________________
"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you"
-"The Wasteland" by T.S. Elliot

hobbish

Yeah, Modern day. I did think construction worker, but he's only just eighteen. What kind of trainign would you need?

Possibly farm worker.

__________________
St. Thomas Aquinas said "he who sings prays twice". St. Thomas Aquinas never heard William Shatner sing "Rocket Man"

Banzai

A farm worker probably wouldn't be able to afford to live in the suburbs though. One would be more likely to live on site, at the farm. As for training, I think that a builder would get on the job training, and if the character in question left school and started work at 16, then a good deal of training would have been already had.

__________________
"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you"
-"The Wasteland" by T.S. Elliot

CaptainFreedom

How about a trash collector or a grave digger?

I used to works at UPS filling semi-trucks with boxes. Those guys are slave-drivers, but at least the time went by fast.

CF

red lantern

He could be an apprentice or on a traineeship, he could be a mason, carpenter, cabinetmaker, work in a pub (lifting barrels, unloading trucks) he could have answered an ad to work for an auction house and deliver furniture and antiques locally or perhaps a driver for a freight company

__________________
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you: Friedrich Nietzsche.

I live in a cemetery full of good will and integrity: Silverchair

hobbish

I'll try and give a little background. he's a social reject who alienates his friends. He lives in a small flat on his own and his parents are either dead/ he was given up as a child. Perhaps a job which would be common for immigrants?

__________________
St. Thomas Aquinas said "he who sings prays twice". St. Thomas Aquinas never heard William Shatner sing "Rocket Man"

Nimbus1944

If he has troubles relating, he'll be better off in a job where he's not dealing with customers . Work requiring some degree of job skill should pay enough. Worker in a railyard? Bridge/tunnel construction? Dock worker?
http://www.workcircle.com/jobs might be of help.

__________________
It wouldn't be right to dream, while
Forgetting to live, it seems;
Nor would it be right to dwell on life
And yet forget our dreams.
-If There Were No Magicians

lisajane

Random factory worker?

__________________
'Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap. And he, a little charleychaplin man, who may or may not catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence.' - Laurence Felinghetti, 'The Acrobat'

archer88iv

Best paying unskilled labor job in my part of the country is warehouse labor. Down at the Wal-Mart distribution center they pay nearly 15 an hour for moving boxes from a shelf to a conveyer belt. Please don't turn this thread into some kind of Wal-Mart economic debate just cuz I mentioned the W word; I'm simply trying to be informative.

Question is, do they have such distribution centers and warehouses in the UK?

__________________
-J

hobbish

We're entirely devoid of cities. If I need something to eat, I go out and kill it.

Jokes, I guess we do. Wal-mart owns Asda over here and I know someone who works there. It's a good idea, thanks.

__________________
St. Thomas Aquinas said "he who sings prays twice". St. Thomas Aquinas never heard William Shatner sing "Rocket Man"

archer88iv

Er... Thanks, but I'm not kidding. I've never been there and I happen to know that the UK is tiny by comparison, with far less dependency on heavy trucks and a highway transportation system. It's entirely reasonable that such ridiculously large warehouses might not exist in the same capacity that they do in the US.

For instance, I had imagined that a warehouse of that nature would be located near the shoreline and have to do with maritime ventures rather than eighteen wheelers. We're a little short on boats and beaches here in the Texas desert, but we have plenty of rubber and asphalt.

Nonetheless, a warehouse job is about the only well-compensated, entirely unskilled occupation I can come up with. I meant absolutely nothing by my question--other than the obvious fact that I have no idea whether or not my advice would be useful to you, since I just plain don't know.

Now if you don't mind I'm going to go kill and skin a midnight snack. /eyerolling

__________________
-J

hobbish

Fair enough. We probably don't have them in the sizes you're talking about, but then again I don't live in a port city. This is probably the idea I'll go with/

__________________
St. Thomas Aquinas said "he who sings prays twice". St. Thomas Aquinas never heard William Shatner sing "Rocket Man"

Mike C

There are thousands of unskilled job options. Labouring on building sites. Cleaning. Flipping burgers. Low grade factory work. All will pay enough to put a roof over your head.

And Archer, we have warehouses in the UK. Virtually everything here is transported by road.

__________________
My writing
My Photo Blog
Web design for Writers
The Oddville Press

Loulou

Have him live in a council flat - then he could be in/on the outskirts of the city. Then it wouldn't matter so much how little he earned - council flats have income related rents. And if you don't work they are paid for by the local council.

__________________
You attempt to pull four story lines together in two-thousand words and nearly pull it off - Eggo
We rarely buy unsolicited manuscripts, but my editor and I thought that this was a superior piece of fiction - Sunday Express magazine